About This Comic

College Buddies
College Buddies was never intended to be my biggest series. To the contrary, it began as a mere thought experiment.
I thought back to old 80s college movies, in particular Animal House, and I wondered what it would be like if such a
thing displayed the consequences of such juvenile futile actions. This was also two months or so seceding the Brett
Kavanaugh controversy. I wanted a cliche comedy with a dark edge. College Buddies is the result. This is a comic
without a plot. The sequels have plots, this one doesn’t. Not in a conventional sense. It has the loosest plot possible.
Don the Dean wants to destroy the frat, the College Buddies confound him, they finally take things too far, but Snob
saves them, and they fully accept him as one of their own. In most of this comic, the Buds wear their T-Shirts,
something which was intended to set them apart from the other stick figures, but soon in the sequels I found that
they needed the same elasticity of my other work, the same twisty bendable art and what have you. This comic
begins with them donning the T-Shirts, and as the series progresses, they wear the shirts less and less, as they
develop and leave College, and cease to be an official frat. It’s a symbolic progression. Of course, they are meant to
imitate Brett Kavanaugh, but this is not a comic about Brett Kavanaugh, these characters are not based on any real
people, this is a comic about a system that cannot function. Nothing more, nothing less. The Frat likes Brett
Kavanaugh. They relish the injustices of their forefathers. On page three there’s a cameo from another character of
mine, Lady O’ The Night. Her inclusion here is to link the College Buddies to the larger Nicolas Comics universe.
Snob’s indoctrination into this unhealthy trinity is to show that anybody can be a College Buddy. Snob was not with
the Frat at the beginning, but that does not matter, the Frat is his destiny. Bob and Rob welcome the opportunity to
transform from a duet into a trio. I added Snob mainly for a fun hazing sequence, and then of course the Frat
becomes what we know it as today, but they’re still unable to fill the phone booth. Don The Dean wears his tie, they
make tacos. This is the base level standard. The Soror also appears here, though they don’t appear again in College
Buddies 2 or 3. I decided to phase them out until I could develop them more fully. After all, they’re identical. But
they’re the same here as they are when they return in College Buddies 4, and they don’t wear shirts. This
consistency gives the reader a sense that everything will remain the same even under the most extreme
circumstances. It’s a comforting thought, in a very messed up sense. Brett Kavanaugh, after all, is now sitting on the
highest court in the land. If such a horrible person can attain such power, why couldn’t the Frat bribe Don the Dean
with one of their signature tacos? Why can’t the Frat commit such atrocities and then escape with their wits? In this
comic I haven’t quite nailed the College Buddies dialect. They won’t employ a plural when appropriate, they’ll say
things a bit more normally and grammatically correct. I figure I should explain one of their catchphrases, “Hot
Pocket”. My nephew’s father had a gay friend over, and my nephew overheard the gay guy say “Hot Pocket”
without pronouncing either of the t’s, so it sounded like “Hoh Pokeh”. I’ve retained this anecdote until I could put it
to a suitable use, and I figured this comic was as good a use as any. I’m sorry if that catchphrase is confusing. As for
the inherent Homosexuality of the bunch, I employed it as a welcome change to intercept their toxic masculinity, in
much the same way Charlie Hebdo shows himself kissing Mohammed. Here, however, the relationship is not meant
as a farce but as an aspect of their character. They cannot be gay but they must be gay. It’s an incredible dynamic. It
leads to many humorous scenarios. Some people call my inclusion of Homophobia and Homosexuality either
confusing or offensive. Their inner conflict is not confusing. It must be accepted as a presupposition by the reader.
As for it being offensive, it’s not. They are the only ones who care about it. I make jokes about Homophobia and its
absurdity, not about Homosexuality’s absurdity. The College Buddies are empty little people, relics from another
eon, and I say if we cannot acknowledge the fact that such people exist in the modern age, we’re no closer to
eliminating them from the pop culture vernacular. I hope that this is accepted as a work of LGBTQ literature as
much as any other work. I present a world where only the hateful hate themselves. This is a very fruity pro-gay
narrative. With that said, it’s time to dive into the genesis for this massive project, the meat and potatoes, as it were.
College Buddies part 1 features the phone booth scene. What more could you ask for? The shower scene, too, I
suppose. There are lots of good bits in here. I’ve talked about this long enough, so now it’s time for you to be judge,
jury, and executioner for these people. Time to watch the College Buddies do what they’re known for. Enjoy.